We set up the Fairer Fife Commission to help us and our partners identify ways in which we can tackle poverty in Fife. As a consequences of this the Fife Partnership has agreed a range of over 40 actions, some short term and some longer term, that will help us address poverty in the Kingdom.

So for example we are keen to be a fair work region. Fife Council has become a living wage employer and we’ve employed over 155 apprentices to help people get into good fair work.

We’re also keen to support those on the lowest incomes and we’ve recently development a community development finance initiative, which will provide fair lending at lower rates to people who would otherwise need to go to high cost lenders.

We’re keen to get Fife online, so we are providing free WiFi access across a wide range of public facilities throughout the Kingdom.

We recognise that tackling poverty is not a short term endeavour, that we’re in this for the long term but we’re making immediate impact now with some of these early initiatives.

We’re keen to make this pledge and we’d encourage you to make a pledge about the difference you can make to tackling poverty in Fife.

The commission challenged the third sector strategy group to look at the third sector in Fife how to do even better and think more strategically about our priorities for addressing poverty and inequality in Fife.

Personally that’s a deep commitment from myself…it also feels like something we really must change to make Fife a better place for everyone.

Together we have come up with a framework which involves:

How we drive change

How we work together

How we value everyone

How we give voice to what is really needed

We’re keen to go out and meet with other community groups and people involved in voluntary organisations and together look at the real priorities if over the next three years we’re going to make a major difference. I’m really looking forward to that.

Finally better health and wellbeing for everyone – it’s the differences between those who are doing well and those doing not so well that is the biggest determinant for health overall in our population.

Cllr David Ross – Chair of Fife Partnership and Leader of Fife Council

In November 2015 we received the report of the Fairer Fife Commission on how we should be trying to tackle poverty and inequality across Fife. And challenging us to be more ambitious in how we tackle these problems.

Poverty and inequality are somethings that are everyone’s problem in Fife, whether they are personally affected or not. It’s a waste of resources, it’s a waste of potential and we all end up paying for the consequences of poverty and inequality.

Fife Council, Fife’s Community Planning Partnership and myself personally are all committed to creating a Fairer Fife and trying our very best of the coming years to put the recommendations of the Fairer Fife Commission into effect.

Whether that’s creating more apprenticeships for our young people, making sure everyone pays the living wage, building more affordable housing to tackle homelessness, tackling the problem of literacy and numeracy and improving the educational attainment of our kids, or tackling fuel poverty. These are just some of the things we want to address through the coming years in our efforts collectively and our commitment collectively to create a fairer Fife.